Gravity's Ghost: Scientific Discovery in the Twenty-first Century

by Harry Collins

In theory, at least, gravitational waves do exist. We are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation, which is generated when stars explode or collide and a portion of their mass becomes energy that ripples out like a disturbance on the surface of a serene pond. But unfortunately no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected even though the search has lasted more than forty years.

As the leading chronicler of the search for gravitational waves, Harry Collins has been right there with the scientists since the start. The result of his unprecedented access to the front lines of physical science is Gravity’s Ghost, a thrilling chronicle of high-stakes research and cutting-edge discovery. Here, Collins reveals that scientific discovery and nondiscovery can turn on scientific traditions and rivalries, that ideal statistical analysis rests on impossible procedures and unattainable knowledge, and that fact in one place is baseless assumption in another. He also argues that sciences like gravitational wave detection, in exemplifying how the intractable is to be handled, can offer scientific leadership a moral beacon for the twenty-first century. In the end, Gravity’s Ghost shows that discoveries are the denouements of dramatic scientific mysteries.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2010

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well informed look at the sociology of the nascent field of gravitational wave detection on its path to (future) first observation of these cosmic messengers. Collins' insider status and longstanding contact with the field give him a unique perspective from which to put the field's struggles for discovery into their appopriate context. Much shorter than Gravity's Shadow, this book focuses on an important step along the path, the equinox event. As a member of the gravitational wave field, I read this with great interest, and was not disappointed.